Fall, in love

Well, summer is gone and we are officially into the throngs of what promises to be a lovely autumn. The leaves are turning their new hues, it’s time to take out the cardigans (yes!) and the drama of Philadelphia’s sunsets has increased tenfold. Let not the close of summer keep us from enjoying excursions, weekending now and then and even going to the beach – my parents went to the Jersey shore last weekend. If you are in the Northeast, this is prime winery time, or at least ripe for taking a drive, walk or bike ride out in the crisp air. Go do it! Everything will be so much better. Last night I took an hour long detour on my way out to dinner just so I could spend time biking in the cool air. Yes, autumn rules. Going out doors is nice. Watch the sunset, forget about your clock, have that cathartic Caspar David Friedrich moment.



When I went up to Hunter New York I sat and watched a sunset with my friends for what felt like an eternity. This was THE moment of my summer, and many things came into perspective just allowing myself to clear my mind and put my focus on the light shifting over the mountains. Yes, it is very corny. I don’t care – sunsets are beautiful. My sister visited some friends in Olympia, Washington in August and came back with her own sunset moment. Apparently, right in the middle of a nice social evening, her friend suddenly shouted out “Quick! We have to go to the coast now or we’ll miss the sunset!” of course this excursion was not a pre-planned part of the day, but nevertheless everyone piled into their cars and zoomed out towards the ocean, with the pure, simple motive of watching the sunset. My sister was very moved by this sudden burst of passion for such a seemingly un-extraordinary event; it was with this moment that it became apparent to my sister that life for her friend in Olympia was precisely about enjoying these moments – the beauty observed in the every-day things is what makes every day enjoyable. It’s classic but true, the west coast just seems more in to standing back and taking in the scenery.

Here is My west coast sunset, seen at Black's Beach in San Diego last March:


And in Hunter, NY:


There is no reason for us not to pursue those instants of secret beauty, to follow and take pleasure in every moment of delight that the simple fact of the world turning offers us. This is life lived to it’s fullest, to take pleasure in the wealth of gorgeous detail all around us. While my weekend in the country was wonderful, I’m finding endless wonders right here at home as well.

Of course taking that trip to Hunter was even better for the friends I was with. I love making things and baking for friends anyway (as I write this I am baking something for my roommate’s gallery reception), so of course I whipped up a little something that we all enjoyed with our breakfast the first morning. This recipe will now always be associated with memories of late summer in the woods, and of all the lovely things I saw there.

Peach Mountain Bread

1-2 Peaches (alas, peach season is over, but maybe you can scrounge up some stragglers)
1/4 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup honey
2 Cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
1 Cup milk
2 TBS melted butter
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a loaf pan.
Slice the peach or peaches into thin wedges, approx. 1/4 – 3/8 inch wide along the peel. Set aside.
In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a small bowl, whisk the honey, egg, milk and butter until fully mixed. Add the wet to the dry and add the walnuts, stir until “just mixed”.
Pour batter into the loaf pan. Working somewhat quickly, layer the peaches in rows of about four slices so that the corners overlap (see photo – get it? The peaches look like mountains. Cute.). Cover the entire top of the loaf – this is why you might need more than one peach.
Bake for 45 minutes – 1 hour, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for about 10 minutes, and remove from pan to cool on a rack or ceramic plate. Yum!

Idle hands

Domestic production is joyful production.

Or, “Work and leisure can join once again!”

At the recommendation of a dear friend (and super blogger), I just read the wonderful “How to be Idle” by Tim Hodgkinson, editor of the likewise themed journal The Idler. The book is ordered by every hour in the day, beginning with the celebration of taking as long as possible to get out of bed, then into a productive yet relaxed afternoon and ending with nighttime revery and meditative reflection. It's a layout of the day that encourages thoughtfulness rather than busy work, and is a model of being that emphasizes relationships and personal contentment over anything else. It is clear to me that I have found a kindred spirit and a valuable alternative posing of many of my own principles - why shouldn't those be the most cherished and important aspects of our lives?

His argument, is that we, as all the little guys in this industrial & consumer society, need to turn our backs on this system that is so clearly failing us and “be responsible for ourselves; we need to create our own republics… A world where everyone is free to create their own life, their own work, their own money.” Quit your job. Live your life. Define your own currencies. You will get far more accomplished this way.

Exactly!

While he does at one point say that we should avoid domestic work, I’ll let that slide. The power of domestic work is that it functions precisely as it’s own form of economy. There is no dollar value to be placed on lessons which enhance our own faculty, as such knowledge facilitates learning not only how to use tools or one’s hands, but how to apply that sense of ability – capability - to any other activity. Teach a man to fish, you know?

These are the lessons that are lost without this precious time, which are surely part of Hodgkinson’s notion of the idle life. These are times for quiet pondering, spaces to problem-solve, to sort through the day. The greatest barrier preventing everyone from enjoying and taking full advantage of these moments is, of course, the work day, and more often than not the high-stress-too-long-and-dreadful work day. Our current definition of “work” is itself a huge part of the problem, or at least a major chunk of the mental block preventing us from delineating between so-called productive activity that is burdensome and actually productive activities that will bring us joy, both during and after. Of course gardening (for example) is work, very hard work, physically and mentally. However, the fruits of one’s labor (literally) and even the process of handling earth and engaging in the critical analysis needed for successful growth are incredibly joyful tasks, engaging the mind, activating the body, and resulting in a little pocket of pretty green – a perfect setting for, of course, doing nothing. If a fruit, vegetable, or herb garden is grown then the benefits will certainly extend past the time it took to sow the seeds, and the plot of land so manipulated and cared for as an operation of joyful work will extend into the realm of the most serious and productive purpose, to feed and care for ourselves and others.

It is a shame then that this term “work” should be so marred by the overwhelming negative implication of wrenching oneself out of bed, out of the home, out of comfort, and into a foreign place in which the individual must abandon all personal pleasure or desired activity and submit to a mode of work which, in most cases at least, is not to their preference or liking. After a full day of demands upon one’s mental energy for such non-useful work, or that which is not useful for the worker, it is certainly understandable that we would end each day feeling drained and numb, not wanting to ask anything of our brains more complex than microwaving something out of a box and turning on the television. In this unnatural and impersonal definition of work, labor of any kind becomes a thing to avoid at all costs, thus disabling our will to execute the very tasks we dreamed about doing all day.

And this is where the notion of different economies may enter the picture.

Time is money, there is no avoiding this fact (though Hodgkinson disagrees). What should be re-examined however is how we define our currencies. As the artist Faith Wilding so eloquently proclaims in her fabulous essay Monstrous Domesticity (1995), 'I am for an economics of care', a broader definition of work and labor in which the value of an action or product is measured according to its functional use by an individual, another person, or community. It is a call to redefine our places in the world, to reconsider the resonance of our actions and to recognize the abilities we have as individuals. Wilding's essay focuses on a strong interest in domestic craft and work by young people and their absolutely alien relation to it; "Monstrous Domesticity" is a reflection on this contemporary lack of ancient knowledge and the desire to re-incorporate those lessons into our daily lives. She speaks about her college age art students' interest in learning such basic domestics skills as knitting and sewing - traditional women's work - which was never included as part of their expected learned-skill vocabulary. These students, she says, had no means of understanding this type of work from first hand learned experience and therefore could only gain an understanding of it as a nostalgic work-process, their final product taking exaggerated forms.

The desire for domestic knowledge expressed by Wilding's students is the same outcry for a redefinition of our notion of "work". We don't produce for ourselves, and we know - instinctually, perhaps - that there is something very wrong about that. Producing for ourselves is a survival skill, a skill of care. The only economics or currency that can ever truly matter is how much and how well we care for ourselves and each other. Hodgkinson's definition of idleness as self-defined personal freedom is exactly this as well. Giving ourselves the time and liberty to find contentness and being content with the things we have and the things we can produce for ourselves - this is ultimately the only way to lead a satisfied life, a life truly worth living. Isn't that drive then the key to survival?



Faith Wlding, Crocheted Environment (Womb Room)
1972 (recreated 1995)

Native Philadelphia

This is all that’s left of my heartfelt attempt at a lovely lavender-filled window box for the bathroom.



A sad, dried up rotten corpse.

The one to blame? This damn palm tree grass thing that sprouted up a few weeks ago. Fine. If it insists on being the greenest grass, I'll just let it be.
Whatever.
So I went out to the sidewalk and pulled up all the weeds sprouting from every little crack and stuck them in the dirt right next to that guy. Hello “Native Garden”! Now you all have to share. Deal with it. I wanna see who wins.
Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, you still don’t have to join them. Just mess with them a bit.



The thing is, weeds really are just native plants. These are the flora growing all around us whether we want them there or not. As evident below, North Philly apparently caught on to this a while ago.



It’s our manicured gardens that really have a tinge of absurdity to them, not that I’ve got anything against the obscenely unnatural (link). Gardens are the perfect little refuges from urbanity, precisely planned and kept to serve as our individual ideal syntheses of nature’s most extreme examples of aesthetic beauty. Gaston Bachelard in his fabulous book Species of Spaces muses on his experience of his own garden as tool for observing and interacting with the world outside of the human, the realms of flora and fauna; the garden space exists as a sort of neither/nor site, never fully controlled or controllable by humans (weeds and parasites being the perfect examples for this) yet also far from being wilderness.

I am envious of my neighbor two doors down who has been cultivating a mini jungle of grape vines behind her plot on our block of tightly squeezed together row houses. They reach to the roof of her house and cling over the chicken wire ceiling that hovers above the backyard. The growth is so dense they form a vine cave, making it appear as though she’s actually grown an extension onto her house, not a bad idea now that I think of it. It is the ultimate urban retreat, ahiding behind our typical almost tree-less little South Philly street.

I think my moss is intimidated.

Moss, mostly

Inspired by the ever wonderful Martha Stewart (who shall be henceforth, in this post and in all future, be referred to simply as Martha) and the special feature on her TV show last May, I have started a Moss Wall. Martha’s bit was about growing moss intentionally in various places in the garden and using it purely as plant accessory. The New York Times, of course, soon followed suit with their own fabulous full-page story on moss gardens, coincidentally, focusing on moss in eastern Pennsylvania.
Lovely.

When I lived in Brooklyn I had a stone patio in place of a backyard; now that I live in South Philly, the great wasteland of cheese steaks, sidewalk lawn chairs and cracked cement as far as the eye can see, I’ve kind the same deal here. The beauty of moss? It’ll grow anywhere, and many kinds love rock or pavement. The idea clicked, and I am now trying to cover my grey back “yard” into a moss jungle.

There are two methods of getting moss to grow where you want it. First, take some already growing clumps of native moss (you can find this on sidewalks, parks, empty lots, wherever) and hot glue them on to a rock or cement surface of your choice. Really. It looks like your pavement has the moss chicken pox for a while, but the moss will begin to spread itself over a couple weeks. The second method also involves beginning with native moss, and then, well, getting it drunk. The basic principal is pretty simple: moss likes to do it, and giving it a couple of beers totally makes it happen.

Mix in a blender on high speed: 2 cups of moss + 1 cup of water + 1 can of beer (I used Yuengling, keep it local, you know) + 1 tsp of sugar. Martha used Miracle grow in place of sugar, but I'd rather not go anywhere near that stuff. The yeast in the beer acts as a fertilizer and because it is live it encourages growth, thus arousing all the spores making reproduction seem like a good idea (should I just go ahead and call this my Shag Carpet?). This mixture will be nice and gloppy, about the consistency of pancake batter, and should look opaque in the blender. Then pick your rock or patio or wall spot and simply paint on! Remember Chia Pets? Same idea, just think of your wall as a really, really big terracotta sheep.

I’m starting my moss wall using both methods, gluing on clumps and then painting over and around them on all three walls (not the wall of the house, don’t mess with that). I waited for a day after a heavy storm so moss I collected would be full and the wall would have a bit of residual dampness to it. I glued on about twelve small clumps, none larger than my palm, around the wall underneath and near the slight lip at the top. Then I painted my mixture on the upper third of the back wall, allowing for any drips or irregularities. Moss likes damp and shade, so I’m giving it a light spray with the hose everyday.

You probably have some moss growing in your backyard somewhere, so you should certainly start with trying to encourage that to grow and spread more. Using moss from your neighborhood is definitely preferable as the spores for those species are already in the air. Also, look for moss growing on similar rock or pavement as that which you are trying to grow on.

There are loads of other moss spreading mixtures, buttermilk or yogurt come up just as often. Unfortunately, this method does not allow for your moss to be straight edge and vegan, if that’s your thing, but hey if you find another alternative let me know! Maybe soy yogurt?

I’ve included some great links at the bottom, many of which have other moss + culture mixtures. Good luck! Have fun.

The Artistic Garden
Oregon State Botany dept. site
Heavy Petal: Moss Graffiti!
that last one is totally my favorite.


grow little green ones, grow!